Recently, Indonesia tried turning away over 100 desperate Rohingya refugees. Thankfully, the government backtracked and let these refugees land after towing the overcrowded vessel onto shore.
A leaking boat packed with more than 100 Rohingya refugees was towed ashore in Indonesia on Friday, days after the government reversed an earlier decision to turn the stranded vessel away.
The reversal was a rare instance of good news for a mostly stateless ethnic minority whose members have been fleeing persecution in Myanmar and poverty in Bangladesh for years.
While Indonesia should be applauded for taking the correct approach and accepting these refugees, its initial stance and rationale of denying them shouldn’t be quickly overlooked.
RELATED: The Walls Are Closing in on the Rohingya
Dozens of Rohingya refugees who were intercepted after their boat ran into trouble off the coast of Indonesia’s Aceh province were being sent into Malaysian waters, authorities said.
At least 100 people, mostly women, and children, onboard a wooden vessel said to be taking on water were denied refuge in Indonesia and instead pushed into the neighbouring Southeast Asian country.
When Muslim refugees arrive after escaping wholesale genocide, Muslim nations should be the first in opening their borders and assisting in whatever way possible.
So, what could have possibly warranted Indonesia’s prior decision to reject these refugees and let them try their luck at sea?
…Navy official Dian Suryansyah said Rohingya were not Indonesian citizens and the army could not “simply bring them in as refugees”. “This is in line with government policy,” he added.
…officials at Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had expressed reluctance to help the stranded Rohingya due to the coronavirus pandemic
These are ridiculous excuses but which one takes the cake?
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One entails the idea that government-issued pieces of paper qualify these refugees rather than the fact that these women and children are human beings (Muslims no less!) created by Allah. The other excuse entails that the Indonesian government is scared of the possibility that these Rohingya may give someone a runny nose.
In either case, the Rohingya were almost out of luck due to trivial (and arguably spineless) rationale. Unfortunately, these situations aren’t too uncommon.
In recent years, large numbers of Muslim Rohingya have fled Myanmar, where they face persecution.
..Some have attempted to make their way to Malaysia, a nearby Muslim country which has come to be seen as a safe haven in the region.
…But Malaysia has now refused to allow refugee boats to land, citing the Covid-19 pandemic as a reason.
RELATED: No Justice for Rohingya: Recent UN Resolution Is a Joke
It’s no secret that Muslim countries have been set back heavily due to the West because of wars and sanctions. But does that absolve capable Muslim countries from turning away their dying Muslim brothers and sisters?
The West has no right to lecture Muslim nations on ethics, morality, and human rights but at the same time, there should be a sense of personal responsibility to take care of the vulnerable especially when Allah has blessed the Ummah with the means to do so.
Hopefully, this good news sets a precedence for other nations to welcome the Rohingya with open arms.
Inshallah.
I love you sir may Allah protect you
Every country has the legal right to decide which aliens or foreigners and how many of them they legally take into their country. Under the current system of the Muslim world being divided into 50+ independent countries, Indonesia (like every other country) has no legal obligation to take in any foreign refugee from anywhere, simply because they are not Indonesian citizens. They may grant a few foreigners refugee status as a privilege, not as a basic right for all foreigners.
If you want this problem resolved in an Islamic way, then support the abolition of this system where the Muslim world is balkanized into 50+ countries. Instead, replace that system with a new one in which there is no such thing as “Muslim nationS” like what you mentioned, and instead there is only one Muslim nation (ummаh=nation) and therefore only one country for all Muslims. Instead of having a country called Indonesia and another country called Malaysia, merge them together along with all other Muslim countries to make a new bigger country “Islamesia”, also known as “Islamistan” or the “United States of Islam” or the Іslаmіс Саlіphаte (IC).
I think you’re missing the point. The article isn’t about ‘legal rights’ it’s about moral obligations under Islam. Under Islam there’s an obligation to help people in need…especially if they’re brothers and sisters. Not doing so is a sin which you’re accountable for on the day of judgement.
The second part of your writing is highly simplistic and by the way won’t help these Rohingya at this moment.
Giving them temporary “refugee” status which has very limited rights (including restricting their right to move freely and work) is only a a temporary band-aid for now. It is not a sustainable long term solution. The real long term solution to carry out the “moral obligation” is to create the IC or Islamesia because it will have a legal obligation to give instant citizenship to all Muslims (which is what the country was made for) so that the stateless Rоhіnga will not be persecuted anymore because they will have IC nationality which allows them to freely live all over Islamesia as citizens, not refugees.
Until this solution is carried out, why must all current Muslim countries be forced to take in an unlimited number of unwanted “foreigners” when they won’t contribute to the economy or host country? How would you like if your town got suddenly flooded by millions of foreign aliens who only make an overall negative impact since they don’t contribute anything and many of them resort to crime or aggressive begging? That’s what many would consider as “invasion”, so they don’t want it. So as per the current nationalism system, Indonesia has the legal right to reject 100% of all foreigners/aliens even if they may die by being pushed back to sea, since that deters other potential “invaders” from trying to do the same. If they have a religious moral obligation to help the refugees, then do it correctly through the way I explained above, by changing the entire country itself.
Your words say a lot about you, very negative person. How could you know that “they won’t contribute to the economy or host country” and …who only make an overall negative impact since they don’t contribute anything and many of them resort to crime or aggressive begging?”. Imagine if you and your family were those Rohingya, Would you take yours words seriously????. Very dump person with rubbish mouth
I get what you’re saying and feel full sympathy for Rohingyans, who are nearly all uneducated so won’t contribute to host country. However the solutions suggested here are not realistic and feasible because they are all within the scope of the current nationalism system. In this system, every time there is mass migration of poor people or refugees to a relatively richer place there is always the same problem of the migrants disproportionately committing crimes and aggressive begging (including sexually assaulting local girls) and this feeds into huge anti-migrant Xenophobia sentiment and racist attacks, which is already affecting Syrians and Iraqis in Turkey and Europe, Tajiks and Uzbeks in Russia, Mexicans/Latinos in the US, and Venezuelans in Peru. Do you want Rohingyans to suffer the same fate everywhere they go? If not, if you want a REAL long term solution to avoid this, stop supporting the balkanization of the Muslim world and the existence of an independent country called Indonesia, and instead support the Islamic solution I suggested above to create “Islamesia” AKA the “United States of Islam”.
Look at how the Europeans are welcoming the
KhazarsUkrainians! They are even evicting Muslim refugees to make living space for the blue eyed and blonde haired refugees.This is the ONE thing the modern moderately Muslim people will not learn from the master race.